Gloria Steinem: In U.S., Home 'Is Single Most Dangerous Place for a Woman’

Gloria Steinem spoke at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Thursday at an event to mark the 40th anniversary of Ms. Magazine. (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr)

(CNSNews.com) – Speaking at an event to mark the 40th anniversary of Ms. Magazine, co-founder and feminist activist Gloria Steinem said that because of domestic violence “the home in our country is the single most dangerous place for a woman” and that ending domestic violence is “the key to world peace.”

“We can understand, you know, where it is we wish to go and also reveal more clearly where it is we are now,” Steinem said at the National Press Club on Thursday.

“For instance, domestic violence, or original violence, has diminished somewhat, but it is true right now that if you added up all the women murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in this country since 9/11 and then took all the people killed in 9/11, all the Americans killed in Iraq and in Afghanistan, there are more women who have been murdered by their husbands and boyfriends than were collectively killed in those situations,” she said.

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“It’s also still true that the average prison sentence for a partner, a male partner who kills his female partner, is less than for a woman who kills in self-dense in the home,” Steinem said.

“It’s still true that the home in our country is the single most dangerous place for a woman – not the street,” Steinem said.

The number of people killed by terrorists in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001 was 2,977. The number of troops killed in Afghanistan total 2,125 and 4,475 in Iraq, according to the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. That would bring the total for the attack and the two wars to 9,577 deaths.

From 2001 through 2005, 5,861 women were killed by an intimate partner, according to the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (page 90).

In 2008 alone, 1.21 million male or female babies were aborted, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

Steinem highlighted a book during her remarks, “Sex and World Peace,” that claims a peaceful world will not exist until men and women are treated equally and violence against women ends.

Steinem said a short-term goal for ending domestic violence in the United States should be for Congress to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act.

“And then there is the very long-term goal of understanding, not to be— I don’t want to frighten anybody here, but it is the key to world peace, hello?” Steinem said.

Ms. Magazine was co-founded by Steinem and is now run by the Feminist Majority Foundation. The inaugural issue in 1972 featured Wonder Woman and the banner “Wonder Woman for President.”

Wonder Woman reappears on the 40th anniversary edition, this time with protesters carrying signs emblazoned with “Stop the War on Women” and “2012 – Vote as If Your Life Depends On It.”